I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefe
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass .
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
Connection:
Andy Warhol’s Death 11 Times, is a print of the same car in 11 different positions. Warhol’s painting connects with Wallace Steven’s ThirteenWaysof Looking at a Blackbird. Just like the poem, the prints illustrate not thirteen, but eleven different ways or views of dying in a crash. Though Warhol’s print is rather gruesome, compared with Steven’s poem, they both have the same idea. In Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird there are a lot of details for example in Stevens thirteenth verse he wrote,
“it was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.”
In Warhol’s print, the eleventh car is very distant and hard to see. Both artists, expressed things very differently, but had very similar ideas.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Wallace Stevens
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefe
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass .
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
Connection:
Andy Warhol’s Death 11 Times, is a print of the same car in 11 different positions. Warhol’s painting connects with Wallace Steven’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. Just like the poem, the prints illustrate not thirteen, but eleven different ways or views of dying in a crash. Though Warhol’s print is rather gruesome, compared with Steven’s poem, they both have the same idea. In Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird there are a lot of details for example in Stevens thirteenth verse he wrote,
“it was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.”
In Warhol’s print, the eleventh car is very distant and hard to see. Both artists, expressed things very differently, but had very similar ideas.
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